Service for Two
by flowerpicture
Summary: Ste is a waiter in a restaurant that Brendan has chosen to bring all his dates to. One shot. AU.


**AN: In case anyone is curious—no, I haven't stopped writing AFS. I just got this idea for this little one shot this morning and decided to write it quickly. Hope you enjoy. :)**

::: :::

It's busy for a Wednesday night, and you're in your element. You prefer it when there's a rush on, when you're kept on your toes; it means the clock ticks by quicker, and the tips at the end of the night are bigger, and you can go home knowing you've performed well for Tony.

It's always important to you, doing a good job for Tony. He'd taken a chance on you, back when you'd had nothing going on except petty crime and hanging about town aimlessly. But one day you'd seen the sign go up in the window—_Staff Wanted_—and you'd gone in on a whim, asked for an application form. He'd noticed you struggling to fill it out, never quite able to get a handle on words the way you should at your age, and so he'd taken the form from your hands and talked to you instead, asked you the questions. He'd given you a trial, one week he said, and you'd had trouble writing down the orders and transferring them to the order screen, but you'd excelled at everything else, and the ordering fell into place for you in the end, and six months later you're still here. You're grateful.

It's coming on for nine o'clock when things slow down a little. All the tables in your section are full, but everyone's mid-meal and there's not much to do except fill water jugs periodically, ask if anyone needs anything. You busy yourself behind the counter, restocking bread baskets and filling olive oil bottles, and a while later the door opens and a couple walks in and the male half of this couple catches your attention.

He's tall, and he's dark, and he has the most random moustache you've seen in a while but it works on him. His eyes are sharp as he scans the restaurant, his arm around the waist of the woman by his side. There is something about this man that hits you in the chest and you can't look away, and you can't figure out why. You watch as they approach the hostess station, and Rae leads them into Amy's section as yours is full, and you're still watching as they reach their seats and the man removes his jacket, revealing a tight red shirt stretched and straining over sinewy muscle. Your mouth waters.

A gentleman in your section clicks his fingers at you arrogantly and you go over to clear his plates, take them to the kitchen. You take the long way as you go back, wanting to walk past this man who has captured your attention so thoroughly, and as you pass by him his eyes flick up from the menu and lock on yours and you don't know if you imagine it but it feels intense, this shared moment, and when you're back with your own customer, taking his dessert order, you can feel eyes on your back. You glance over your shoulder and the man is looking over his own shoulder at you and you don't know what to do except look away and carry on with your job.

Back behind the counter, you watch the man surreptitiously. You don't want to be obvious, and you can only see the back of the man really, and there's no chance of getting caught unless he suddenly looks back at you again. But he doesn't; he focuses on his date, only you're coming to realise it's not a date. The woman is dressed up, all tight dress and big hair, but there are documents on the table between them, and she has a fork in one hand and a pen in the other, writing things down as the man speaks. It's some kind of business dinner, and it makes your stomach jolt.

"Amy," you mutter to her as she comes behind the counter to re-fill a water jug. "What's that guy like?"

She frowns across at you. "What guy?"

"The one with the moustache."

She looks over at her section, trying to figure out who you're going on about. You can't understand how she can't know immediately, how the man hasn't wormed his way into her mind like he has with you.

"I don't know," she says, her tone suggesting you're being weird. "He's just some guy. Irish I think."

Irish. That tells you nothing, except that maybe he doesn't live here. Maybe this is just a business trip.

You head to the kitchen when one of your orders comes in and as you pass his table on the way back again, plates in hand, he looks up at you once more, in advance this time, watches you coming and watches you pass and the woman he's with is talking to him, but he doesn't appear to be listening. His eyes are locked on you and you stare back and it's a wonder you don't knock into anything, as the dark glint in his eyes has you under a spell.

You're sent on break a while later, and you spend your fifteen minutes in the back room wishing you were out front, watching this man and trying to figure out a way to see if there's any hint of mutual interest.

When you head back out front, the man and his business date are gone, and Amy is cleaning the table and pocketing what looks to be a generous tip. Your heart sinks and you wander behind the counter dejectedly, and you gaze out of the wall-length window only to realise you'd missed him by seconds. He's outside, unlocking a car parked close to the window. He pauses before he opens his door and he looks through the window, scanning the restaurant before his eyes land on you and he stops, and he stares, and he's a little too far away for you to read his expression but you can feel the heat of his attention like a brand.

::: :::

He comes back exactly a week later, the following Wednesday evening, with another woman, a different woman. Blonde this time, a little vacant behind the smile, and you realise it's an actual date this week, he's taking this girl out.

Rae sits him in Amy's section again, even though you have a handful of empty tables, and you can do little more than watch him. This time he's sat facing you, his eyes burning into you wherever you go, and you can't look lest you lose focus on your job and do something stupid.

He stops you as you walk past, murmurs, "Excuse me," in a silky, rumbling tone that catches your breath, and you stop, paste on your polite smile, act as though the look in his dark eyes as he stares directly up at you isn't making your skin itch.

"Yes?" you say.

The lady looks fed up, staring sulkily out of the window. The date isn't going well, and you try not to let your pleasure show on your face.

"Can we have the bill?" the man asks, but the sultry note in his tone makes it sound filthy.

He's got a hand around his water glass, and he's gliding his fingers down the outside, and he's keeping eye contact for far too long and this is your moment to speak now, you need to say something.

The words come out dry. "I'll have your server bring it to you." Then you get away from there quickly, before he notices the effect he's having on you.

He leaves shortly after, but not before shooting you a smile that looks more like an invitation. You whimper quietly to yourself and discreetly press a hand down on your crotch.

::: :::

You see him coming the following Wednesday. See his car pull up, watch him step out and approach the restaurant with yet another woman, a redhead. You rush over to Rae and grab her arm, mutter into her ear, "I'll split my tips with you tonight if you sit this next couple in my section."

She frowns at you, then squints across at your tables. "You haven't got any space."

"No, right, see those two there? They've just paid. They're gonna leave in a minute."

"I can't make them wait, Ste," she says, tutting, and the door's opening, and the guy's coming in with his date, and you've run out of time to make your case.

The man sees you first, hovering by the hostess station, and he gives you a curious, heated look before he smiles at Rae, who beams back at him.

"Evening," she says brightly. "Table for two?"

His date grabs his arm, hangs off it, and his eyebrows draw together as if in irritation. "Please."

"Right, well—"

You elbow her, and she shoots you a scowl, and the man watches the exchange with a smile dancing in his eyes.

Rae sighs. "I can give you a table here at the front in Ste's section if you'd like to wait at the bar for a minute or two. Or we have some tables by the window—"

"Here's fine," the man says. He gives you a knowing look, and you colour. "Ste's section," he adds, slowly, pronouncing each letter with care.

Your heart races.

You can tell Rae's a bit confused, but she goes with it, and she guides the couple to the bar and you quickly clear up and reset the recently vacated table. She settles them at the table with menus while you handle another table and a minute later you're free to go over to him, and speak to him, and take his order.

He smiles at his menu as you approach, and you know there's nothing amusing on there, and you can't help thinking he finds you a bit of a joke, that he's humouring you. But his eyes say otherwise as he looks up at you, and you've been around the block, you know what that look means, and the way he licks his lips before giving his order has you mesmerised. You take the menus from them, and your fingers touch his, and he doesn't let go straight away so you're caught in this moment of holding the menu and touching his fingers and looking into his eyes and it's like there's a message there for you, a secret message, but he's on a date and you must be mistaken.

You pour his wine after transferring his order, and he takes a sip while you wait, murmurs, "Delicious," thumb brushing across his bottom lip to catch a stray drop and you swallow, fill the glasses.

It's as if his date doesn't exist, but she clears her throat then to get his attention, and you walk away, leave them alone until their order comes through and act as if you can't feel him watching you, his eyes burning across your skin.

You finally get his name when it comes time to pay. He gives you his credit card after you hand him the bill and you read his name on it as you insert it into the machine. _Brendan Brady_.

"Here you go, Mr Brady," you say as you pass him the machine for his PIN.

"Call me Brendan," he says, and he hands you the machine back, and he looks up at you, and the dirty smirk is in his eyes more than on his lips and it hits you in the gut, makes you hold your breath. "Steven."

You don't know how he's guessed your full name, that Ste is short for something, or if he's asked someone for the information. But you don't care, because your name falling from his lips has your skin buzzing and you bite your bottom lip and he watches it, and he swallows, and his hand on the table curls into a fist.

His date huffs, breaking your eye contact with him, and you jolt back into motion. You place his card and receipt on the table by his clenched fist and walk away, returning only after he's left, a far-too-generous tip waiting for you, which you give straight to Rae.

::: :::

He comes in with yet another date the next Wednesday, and it's getting curious now, this stream of women who don't seem to be lasting more than one night. You wonder if he takes them home, if he sleeps with them, but you know he doesn't. You have nothing to go on except the way he looks at you compared to the way he looks at them and you know he's not seeing them like that, not how he sees you.

But you're just his waiter; you're not the one he's taking out for these expensive meals. And it's your job to serve the food and the wine and withstand his heated looks, his casual but deliberate touches as he hands you back the menus, and the empty bread baskets, and the careful brush of his arm against your hip as you pass his table.

But as you lean over to fill his date's glass, you feel a hand suddenly on the back of your thigh, fingers curling around the inside and up, and your own hand shakes, and you spill a drop of the wine, and you mutter, "Sorry," and ignore her scowl and swallow past a dry throat as that hand presses up against your balls for the briefest instant before vanishing, and you can breathe again, and the look in his eyes as you glance at him has you rock hard in a second.

She excuses herself to the bathroom a while later and you take the opportunity to clear the plates. You purposely don't get near to him because you can't handle another touch, wouldn't be able to control yourself, but he watches you over the rim of his glass anyway, pure darkness and undisguised lust in his eyes, and you say to him, "These dates don't seem to be going well," because you're an idiot, and pointing out the obvious isn't going to get you anywhere.

He smiles, slow and wicked, and murmurs, "Maybe I'm not choosing the right kind of person."

You don't miss it. The right kind of _person_. Not the right kind of _girl_. It's the biggest hint he's dropped so far and you open your mouth to say something dangerous but his date returns, and she's complaining about something, and you leave.

Before he goes he comes over to the counter to give you your tip in person, and he slides it into your shirt pocket while staring you in the eye and standing too close, and he mutters, "Don't spend it all at once." It's patronising, but the expression on his face speaks of filth and desire, and you can't breathe until he steps away again, fingers lingering on your chest and drifting lower until he has to break contact.

::: :::

When he comes in the next week, he's with a man. Blond and skinny and young, and you don't know what to make of it, don't know what to feel. You work out pretty quickly that it is indeed a date—the boy is looking at Brendan with stars in his eyes, like he can't believe his luck, and Brendan humours him with a smirk, and then a scowl when the kid tries to touch his hand on the table.

A part of you is pleased that he's not going through the whole façade again tonight; the other part of you has your heart sinking, because Brendan has taken a man on a date, and that man is not you.

You take their order, and nothing has changed. Brendan still looks at you with that same heat, and he still touches you whenever he can, and the date has noticed—huffing and frowning and shooting you evil looks. But you don't care, because you can't take much more of this, and you swallow down the sudden swell of nerves as you head to the bathroom, look at Brendan to find him watching you as you open the door, watching you like he always is, with that look of pure want in his eyes. You give him a look that is as much of an invitation as you can make it and this is dangerous, this is wrong, Brendan's on a date—but you know that if he follows you in here, you're not going to back out.

A minute passes, and then another, while you stand over the sink and stare at yourself in the mirror, at your flushed cheeks and your red lips, swollen with the heat of desire.

Then the door opens, and it's Brendan, and he looks different in this brighter light somehow, more open, the want in his eyes so starkly clear that it leaves you breathless.

He stands there and watches you in the mirror for a few moments, and you stare back, and not a word passes between you but he must see something he likes because suddenly he's marching forward, and he's grabbing your arm, and he's propelling you into the nearest stall and slamming you back against the door of it and you whimper.

He comes in close immediately, crowds in and presses his body against yours, and he gets his hands on each side of your face and drags his thumbs along your jawline and you just stare up at him as if caught by the wickedness in his eyes as he searches over your face, the glint of desperation there that you feel mirrored in your own chest. You're both breathing laboriously and you don't have a lot of time so you shift your hips forward against his and whisper, "Please," and he bares his teeth before crashing your mouths together, smothering you with a kiss that sucks the breath from your lungs.

He wastes no time after that. He devours your mouth while he tears at your belt and buttons and all of a sudden there's a hand on your dick, and your trousers and boxers are being shoved down around your thighs, and he tears his mouth away to give you a look of pure carnal hunger before he spins you around and presses down on your back to make you bend down, hands braced on the door for balance, and then there's a wet finger pushing into your hole and the breath you suck in is rattled and strained.

He fucks you with the finger, and then a second, while you listen to him yanking open his own trousers with his other hand and you try not to cry out with the overwhelming rush of pleasure flooding your veins. You squeeze your eyes shut and you listen to the sound of a wrapper opening and then he's grunting, and you know he's smoothing on a condom, and you desperately want to look over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of his dick but in a moment you're going to feel it inside you, and that's better.

The fingers pull out of you, slow and with care, and then the head of his dick presses against your hole and you bite your lip to prevent any noise from spilling past your lips. He gets both hands on your hips then and he holds on tight, whispers, "Relax," in the instant before he pushes home and it's the first word he's spoken to you since this started, the shock of it distracting you enough from the burn of his entry that all you feel is pleasure coiling around your hole and up inside you and you smack a hand against the door as he pushes in deep.

He starts fucking you immediately, and he reaches around to stroke your dick in time with his thrusts, and you're letting out little moans on each one as he breathes against the back of your neck, bites down on the skin there.

Then the bathroom door opens, and someone says, "Brendan?" It's Brendan's date and you freeze, but Brendan doesn't stop, gets his spare hand pressed over your mouth to silence you and keeps fucking you, his thrusts shallower now but no less punishing, hitting you so perfectly deep inside that you can already feel your orgasm building.

Your impromptu visitor leaves the bathroom and Brendan releases your mouth, gets his hand under your jaw to pull your head up and around so he can kiss you, rip the moans from your mouth with his tongue as his thrusts increase and his hand on your dick quickens and you're shaking, whole body writhing under the onslaught of this attack of pleasure.

He lets out a subdued groan into your mouth as his hips start stuttering, losing their rhythm, and he breaks away from the kiss to focus and hammer home and your orgasm is punched out of you with force, Brendan's dick hitting that spot inside you that makes you want to scream, makes your bones and veins and muscles burn with ecstasy.

He fucks you through it, and he punishes your hole for his own orgasm, and you feel it rip through him with a final thrust that pushes him so deep inside you, you'll be feeling him for days.

You give it only a few seconds for the comedown before you're pulling away, breath still heaving from your chest, and you're yanking up your trousers, praying you have a spare shirt somewhere in your locker or you're fucked. You hear him rearranging himself behind you, and then he grabs you and turns you, and any fear you had about this being awkward is vanquished by the bruising kiss he lays on your mouth then, the tangle of tongues as he presses into your mouth and wraps his arms around your waist.

He pulls away then, and there's an odd smile on his face—half satisfaction, half humour. "See you next week," he mutters, and he kisses you a final time before he leaves you alone in this stall, shaking and sated.

::: :::

You're itching to see him by the time Wednesday rolls around again, just want to see his face and touch his skin, even if it means having to watch him sit through another date. You realise this makes you the other woman, so to speak, the dirty little secret. But you don't care, not yet.

He comes in later than usual, and he's with a woman this time. A tall, busty blonde with a loud voice and a huge smile. You can't believe he's taken a step back, and when he meets your eye with a smile, you scowl at him, refuse to feel guilty when his face falls in confusion.

Once they're seated, you approach their table and frown at him. "Thought you were done with this," you mutter, no manners at all or concern for his date.

You don't know why you're so angry. Whether it's a man or a woman, the date's not with you, so it shouldn't matter to you. But seeing him with a man is better than seeing him lying to the world with a woman and it does bother you, somehow, that he can't be honest, even if you're nothing more than a fuck in a bathroom to him.

His eyes clear and widen as if he gets it, and he says, "Steven, this is my sister, Cheryl."

And you feel like the biggest kind of idiot. Your lips part in surprise and embarrassment, and you feel your cheeks warm. "Oh."

"It's her birthday," Brendan explains, and his hand touches your thigh beside the table, out of sight, and it's not a sexual touch this time, it's a gesture of reassurance. It confuses you. "I wanted to treat her to the best food in town."

His sister beams at his words, and you say stupidly, "Why'd you bring her here then?" Which makes them both laugh.

You take their order, and you leave the table feeling wrong-footed, because you don't understand what's happening, and you want to know what's going on in Brendan's head right now, but you have no right to any of this information because you're still just the waiter, and you're still insignificant, even if Brendan's looking at you with a curious sort of intent as you clean plates and fill glasses and bring the bill.

When Brendan leaves, your heart sinks. You hadn't expected a repeat of last week, but there'd been nothing at all except the way Brendan looks at you, and the way he touches you, and it could all be nothing, just your imagination. But you'd thought it was something.

You head to the back room for your break, and you're not in there more than thirty seconds before the door opens and Brendan sneaks in. In your surprise you forget to ask him how he made it back here without notice, and he takes the opportunity to press you back against the wall and kiss you deep, groin pressing against yours and his cock hard and warm.

You're breathless when he pulls away, and he's brushing his fingers against your cheek. He murmurs, "When do you finish?" and he's searching your eyes with a different sort of look now, something that hints at hope.

"Eleven," you say dumbly, because you're too full of elation and lust and confusion, and Brendan's pushed all up against you, but he's not trying to get in your pants, and something about this feels good.

"I'll pick you up," he says, and he kisses you again before adding, "Take you out."

You mutter, "Okay," because you're in too much shock to think of anything else, and you accept his next kiss with your heart racing, and your hands curling over his hips, and your mind flooding with possibility.

His smile before he leaves speaks of promise, and you sit down before your legs give out from beneath you.


End file.
